Proton e.MAS 5 Premium First Drive: Fun and agile but not without limitations

Not even a year after Proton entered the EV arena through the e.MAS 7, the national automaker is now getting ready to launch its second fully-electric offering, the e.MAS 5. Ahead of its official launch, which is expected to happen very soon, we were given the key to briefly test the electric hatchback at Proton Test Track in Shah Alam.

Proton e.MAS 5 Premium Quick Specs

In case you missed our previous reports, here are the general specs for the Proton e.MAS 5 Premium, which is the variant that we get to try out:

Fun to drive, but be mindful of corners

Handling-wise, the Proton e.MAS 5 is quite interesting. The steering is quite responsive, and the car also feels agile, which I attribute to its good turning radius, in addition to being a rear-wheel drive car.

While the e.MAS 5 is certainly quite fun to drive, I also feel that one still has to be mindful of its limits and try not to be too aggressive with the car. This is especially at corners, based on my experience during the staggered gate test.

During this portion of my test drive, I kept feeling that its rear-end wanted to slide away. That being said, I also think that it might have to do with the tyres that have been to the e.MAS 5.

If we can swap the factory Linglong Comfort Master tyres to better options – something with more grip, I believe the car will be more planted on the road.

Is Proton e.MAS 5 stable at high speed?

In terms of high-speed stability, the e.MAS 5 did quite well on straights. At corners, though…well, as mentioned earlier, be mindful of the car’s limitations.

For those who are wondering about wind noise, I apologise that I was focusing more on the driving. After all, the high-speed banked corners at Proton Test Track demand full attention, especially when you’re trying to go as fast as 140km/h.That being said, at the very least, the wind noise didn’t bother me as much as on my own BYD Dolphin ER. On the Dolphin, and this is something that many owners have also experienced, the wind noise becomes loud once you go more than 100km/h and above.

Highly linear acceleration, but this EV is no slouch

When acceleration is not the car’s main selling point, there are usually some signs of it in the specs sheet. Like for e.MAS 5, there is no 0 to 100km/h timing in it but instead, Proton put up the 0 to 50km/h figure instead.

Hence, it is not surprising that this EV is not punchy when you throttle it from a standstill – even in Sports mode. That being said, I believe some may appreciate this characteristic, which resulted in a more chill, calmer drive.Despite the rather linear acceleration rate, I don’t think e.MAS 5 will be left behind at the traffic light or have trouble overtaking lorries anyway. After all, this EV has no problem reaching a top speed of 140km/h even with 3 adults inside the car.

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